


DecoDent Adulations

by 3amepiphany



Category: Wander Over Yonder
Genre: Teeth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-28
Updated: 2016-05-28
Packaged: 2018-07-10 18:45:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7000060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/3amepiphany/pseuds/3amepiphany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A one-shot story after many shots at the closest cantina.</p>
            </blockquote>





	DecoDent Adulations

**Author's Note:**

> Post-"Fremergency Frontact". You can find this snippet with the included images leading up to it's creation at: http://omegalovaniac.tumblr.com/post/143554087984/so-god-bless-avocadosatapogee-because-the-convo

“You’d see them running around all the time, everywhere, and I don’t know if it was a cultural aesthetic thing, a religious thing, fashion, a mix of all of it, whatever. Whatever.

"Whatever it was, I look at it then and I look at it now and it just seems really eerie. We banned the wearing of it on the ship of course, or blatant display, but that doesn’t stop them from getting small pieces in the mail from friends and family at home. As you can imagine it causes a lot of issues on board with anyone who… isn’t familiar with it. But that’s how we wound up with such a devoted army, anyhow. It’s quite interesting.”

“So you keep saying. Get on with it!” 

Peepers looked at Sylvia for a quiet moment, and then he took a sip of his drink. He really shouldn’t have had that last shot. She shouldn’t have, either. Ah, well. “There were really elaborate pieces from all sorts of places in the galaxy. Rings, bracelets, necklaces. Circlets, head and body chains, and even these incredible, large, really expensive head-dresses. Those were sometimes fashioned out of full skulls. The jaw would rest over your shoulders like so,” he gestured, “and the top you would wear like a hat, sort of,” he gestured again. “Encrusted with jewels and gemstones, capped with precious metals, bells, whistles, you name it. And it wasn’t even limited to the real thing, sometimes it was clay beads, glass, metals, all of that. Artisan stuff.

“Hater, of course, being Hater, well, he gets a hold of me and says, ‘Hey, I know it’s been a while but let’s get the band back together and rule the galaxy’ –”

Sylvia snorted.

“Yeah, yeah. So I say sure, and he shows up at my place, and smiles at one of my neighbors while he’s waiting for me to buzz him into the building. That was it, that was all it took. She was one of the zealots, I guess, and by the time the guys showed up later with take-out and their old gear, we had a crowd outside. Hater thought it was for the Harbingers, and hey, it’s free publicity, who were we argue about that? Bing, bang, boom, homeworld is bowled over, conquest one, done. But forget servitude. Droves enlist. They are all in love with his smile.”

“…Wait, what.”

“Yeah.” He started peeling the label off of his bottle. “Teeth.”

“What.”

Peepers pulled out his phone and Hoogled up some images, and handed it over to her to peruse.

“Teeth - Watchdogs. Love. Teeth.”

“Oh. Ohh, my Grop, this is some serious Frictorian Era bullsnot,” she said, flicking through the pics and making faces. “No, this goes way, way, way beyond that ‘memento mori’ stuff, wow.”

“He lost a tooth one morning and I couldn’t tell him in time not to broadcast it.”

“…Okay.”

“He wakes up in the middle of the night to find one of our sentries trying to find the tooth. He’d been overheard and someone wanted to make some money. I didn’t know that yet okay, remember that. He sat up and asked, half-asleep, ‘Who’s there?’ And I spent the next week trying to deter him from the idea of a ‘Tooth Fairy’, all while trying to figure out who in the hell was a fault for this. He and I go around and around about it, and at one point he loses another tooth. To the dentist we go. He regenerates them nearly as fast as Awesome does, being a creature made of living bone. Word gets around. Suddenly the next morning he tells me, ‘C-Peeps’ –”

She laughed loudly. He waited for her to stop before continuing.

“’C-Peeps, you’re not gonna believe it when I say you’re dumb. The Tooth Fairy is real. Wings, tutu, glitter, just like any other fairy.’ Okay, I say. Twice now he’s seen this but this is the first time someone went into his room wearing a costume. I imagine it was to hide their identity because Hater knows Watchdogs don’t have wings. Tooth Fairies do, though. Obviously.”

“Obviously.”

“He says, ‘The Tooth Fairy told me to leave any teeth I lose under my pillow at night, and when I wake up in the morning, I’ll have a shiny Flanian Pobble Bead in exchange. Hey, it’s free money.’”

“Pobble beads killed true bartering,” Sylvia downright cackled, and it made the bartender jump. She apologized, and ordered them each another drink, and handed the Commander his phone back with a small wave. “I can’t look at that anymore, yeesh,” she said.

“Man, I get that. Okay, so I let this go, right? I let it go for a while, thinking, there’s no harm done, but one day I come across some dissent. Some of the Watchdogs are arguing in the hallway and I stop and we discuss the matter. By that I mean ‘Tell me what the vrell is going on here and I won’t send you all to the torture room.’ So they came clean. It was a racket. There was a whole racket and several Watchdogs were making a lot of money in a lot of denominations and a lot of different currencies.”

“No!”

“Yeah. It, uh, wow, this sounds terrible now that I’m saying this out loud, but aside from that, it… it was a rite of passage for newer recruits. It didn’t start like that, apparently Watchdogs were fighting over this Tooth Fairy outfit. But then it became sort of a prime arrangement. Because Hater would wake up in the middle of the night and not have any idea of what was going on - only that someone was trying to reach under his pillow, and he would beat the living daylights out of them.” She started laughing again, and he was trying really hard to keep it together now, too. “Oh, Grop. Okay, okay. So it became, you know, this thing - ‘Not everyone comes back from this in once piece, or alive, but if you do, you’re a hero and you get to keep the money from the tooth you sold.’ Like. Instant celebrity status, here. I just. I had to let this go. It’s still going.”

“Grop,” Sylvia squeaked, trying to stifle herself, but failing awfully.

“Yeah, no, I mean,” He couldn’t do it and dissolved into laughter, too, and it took them quite a few solid minutes to calm down. Finishing the bottle he was on and starting the new one, sighing, chuckling, he shook his head. “You wanted to know why we don’t actually have a dentist on board. Everyone is basically one anyways but their take on it is, ‘Hey, it’s free teeth.’”

“Oh, Grop, oh flarping Grop, wow.”

“Yeah.”

“Wow, what the flarp. That’s so messed up.”

He looked at her mirthfully. “Good story, though, right? Anyways, we fixed the emergency contact list problem, really sorry about that.”


End file.
